Keir Dillon

Snowboarder

Keir Dillon couldn't concentrate. It was the February 2004 World Superpipe Championship in Park City, Utah, and the pipe's 18-foot walls were booming with the sound system's house music and the noise of the raucous crowd. So he put on his earmuff-size Sony headphones, tuned in to the mellow vocals of a singer from his church, dropped in, and won gold. That same focus earned Dillon third-place finishes in both the X Games in January and the U.S. Open in Marcha trifecta of podium appearances at the sport's most renowned contests. In the pipe, Dillon, 27, is known best for his personalized McTwista 540-degree spinning front flipand soaring amplitude. Off the snow, the Carlsbad, Californiabased boarderwho is married and sticks to a rigorous year-round training regimen in hopes of making the 2006 Olympic squadis leading a new revolution of career-focused riders by being up front about who he is and what it takes to win. "You can't be pro these days and be a complete derelict," he says. "It's about being dialed."